"I hope not, uncle. If I thought so, it seems to me that I should no longer have any blood in my veins, inspiration in my brain, or love in my bosom, and that I should no longer be capable of being an artist. But still we must recognize the fact that society is not what it must have been in this island at the beginning of your enterprise. Even if it has taken some steps toward intellectual discoveries, it is certain that the impulses of the heart have lost their energy." "And you call that progress?" exclaimed the Capuchin, sorrowfully. "No, far from it," Michel replied; "but how can those who are born during this state of society breathe any other air than that in which they were born, or entertain other ideas than those which have been forced into them? Must we not yield to the evidence, and bend our necks to the yoke of reality? Did not you yourself, my excellent uncle, when you passed from the exciting life of a free adventurer to the inflexible discipline of the cloister, did not you find that society was not what you thought, and that it was no longer possible to effect anything by violence?" "Alas! that is true!" replied the monk. "During the ten years that I passed in the mountains, I did not know what revolutions were taking place in the manners of civilized mankind. When the _Destatore_ had sent me into the cities with his agents, to try to make satisfactory terms with the nobles whom he had known as loyal patriots, and with the rich and well-educated middle class citizens whom he had known as ardent liberals, I was forced to the conviction that those people were no longer the same, that they had brought up their children with other ideas, that they no longer cared to risk their fortunes and their lives in those hazardous undertakings in which only faith and enthusiasm can perform miracles. Yes, yes, the world had progressed--backward, according to my idea. People no longer talked of anything but making money, of fighting monopolies, of establishing competition, of founding new industries. They all deemed themselves rich already, they were in such haste to become so, and the government could purchase whomsoever it pleased, by the promise of the most trifling privilege. Yes, they had but to promise, to hold out hopes of fortune, and the most ardent patriots pounced upon those hopes, saying: 'industry will give us back our liberty!'